Obi shoved the doors wide again with a hip and a grin, carrying some screws.
On the center bench, he'd already built his newest bad idea: a sturdy frame of iron with a cradle for a stone and a blade he would drop on a guided rail.
"Not such a bad idea" he told it. "A terrible one. But not too bad."
He tried everything he could think of. A chalked cutting line around the yellow sphere worked best, where the blade would hit. Clamps sturdily holding the Luminite gem at four points.
"Alright, beautiful" he murmured to the gem.
The vibrant sphere reflected his face in a twisted image. Light breathed inside it - slow, patient pulses like a sleeping animal.
"Just a clean split. No big show. Don't embarrass me in front of myself."
He tightened the last screw, wiped his palms on his smith apron, and took the lever in both hands.
"Three" he said to no one. "Two. One-"
The door creaked.
Obi blinked. The lever was already falling.
The blade touched Luminite.
Everything around Obi went white.
Light cracked out of the Luminite in an arch - no sound at first, just energy - as if the stone was made of lightning.
The small bolt jumped everywhere: the workbench, the clamps, and eventually, Obi's hands.
He shrieked.
It wasn't pain like a knife - it was the full-body insult of touching the wrong end of a storm.
His curls electrified so fast, Obi looked like he had a wild bush on his head. He stumbled back into a stack of scrap with a very loud sound and sat down hard, blinking smoke out of his eyes.
"What in the - you absolute idiot!"
Cinderette was in the doorway, half in, half deciding whether to step in farther.
Cloak. Boots. The full package, minus the mask. Her hair was tied back in a quick, messy knot.
She took two hurried steps, fingers hovering as if unsure whether to slap him or check his pulse.
"I- Ughh... I had it" Obi coughed heroically, while little sparks still snapped across his sleeves. He tried to stand and sat again. "Mostly…?"
"You were splitting something with an… Improved guillotine!?"
"A very precise guillotine" he corrected, then looked toward the bench. His vision swam for a heartbeat, then cleared.
Smoke curled off the blade. The clamps were still buzzing faintly.
And in the cradle lay two perfect sphere halves.
The glow inside them hadn't dimmed. If anything, it had learned a new trick - light pulsed from one half to the other in a slow, shared breath, as if the split gems were talking to each other.
Obi forgot to pretend to be cool. He whooped, the sound cracking into laughter he couldn't stop.
"Ha-haa! Look at that!" He slapped the rail, still electrified (regretted it, hissed, shook his hand but kept grinning).
"Perfect line. No fracture. No shatter. Tell me I'm not a genius! Go on, try!"
Cinderette's mouth wanted to smile, but she was too worried. The color at her cheeks said the rest.
"You could've died."
"But I didn't! The forces of nature don't have what it takes!" he exclaimed, already on his feet again, leaning to inspect the cut. "And now Raizen gets true twin cores - balanced, matched – ohhh, this is going to be a masterpiece!"
"Your hair is… Uhh…" She lifted a hand, then aborted the gesture halfway. "Wild."
"Thank you" he said earnestly. "It's called innovation. Sometimes it happens to your head."
She huffed a laugh despite herself, then bit it back like she hadn't meant to let it out. "Idiot..." she muttered "Are you… hurt?"
"Nah, only handsome" Obi said, then softened. "I'm fine." He wiggled every finger to show that he could. "You came to…?"
"Commission" she said too fast, then slowed. "And to see if you were still alive after what you pulled at the Maw. Half the Underworks thinks you three robbed an official Council member!"
"They're not entirely wrong" Obi sneezed, and he was already clearing a second bench, because he couldn't stand still more than ten seconds in a row.
"So. For him - twin blades. No drama. Straight spine, sharp edge. I seat each half in a channel along the core, so the cut carries the current instead of just the grip. Right here" His pencil stabbed a dot in the cross-section. "Weight perfectly balanced, so he doesn't outrun his own footwork. Then-"
He stopped himself mid-breath, catching himself red-handed. Realized he's been talking for minutes without breathing properly.
He just info-dumped at a girl in his doorway who could make his lights flicker with a handful of gas if she wanted.
"I'm ranting" he said sheepishly. "Whoops…"
"Yes" Cinderette approved, and laughed - a quick, bright sound that startled both of them.
She put a hand to her mouth like she could catch it before it escaped. "I don't mind, go on!"
Obi blinked. Then recovered like a professional.
"So… You are commissioning something."
Her gaze flicked to the split gems, back to him.
"I might be."
"What do you want?" he asked, and for a rare moment his voice didn't joke first. "Not as a show. As a tool. Let me guess: something that hates you when you swing the wrong way and loves you when you're nailing it?"
She hesitated. "Something silent" she said finally. "Something that moves when I decide. Possibly a retractable knife..."
He nodded, as if that made immediate, beautiful sense in his head. "Hm... I hope you're not assassinating anyone." He pushed a stool toward her with his foot, casual as breathing.
"Then... Why not stay a bit? I need a witness when genius happens so I don't get blamed for modesty."
"You're horrible" she answered.
"Thank you! And yet..." He gestured at the hemispheres. "These two stones split perfectly and make sparks when I hit them! It seems that gems love me."
---
Hikari woke with her cheek on something soft. Raizen's spare shirt. She lifted her head, blinked with a blurred vision, and listened.
Thud… thud… thud.
Not angry. Just stubborn.
She was at one of the sides at the the room with the pillar. The lamp was still there, tired and willing. Raizen stood in front of the pillar he'd been abusing for days - wraps new, knuckles already red through them, shoulder setting and resetting like a machine.
He hit clean. He hit right. He hit as if each punch made a small path through something nobody else could see.
Hikari watched one more combination - jab, cross, hook that never turned sloppy - then let the smile happen at the corners of her mouth.
"You never learn, do you?" she laughed.
Every strike hurt.
Every strike sharpened him.
Every strike brought him closer to who he had to become.
Somewhere between pain and purpose, Raizen was learning what it meant to hit back at the world.